If you’re doing the “put in big chunks and fill in the holes with little splits” method, don’t forget to fill in the rest of the air gaps with pellets. A 2-liter cap full of gasoline underneath will start it up nicely.

Alot of the responses included additional information and advice, which is more than fine with me and I appreciate the spirit in which they were generously given-----however, I really don't think I was over-reacting by taking offense at a snotty verbal attack based on an erroneous assumption, and if standing up for myself means to YOU that I have a bad attitude, well, bummer.

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Kate,

Point is that when you asked what "WE burn" and instead got a comment like "YOU should burn this", that most other people I know wouldn't coil-up and snap at people who are trying to help you. Bottom line: this is a free forum...neither you nor I pay for the information we get. Sometimes we get the info delivered in a nice packaged form exactly as we asked for in our question and some times it comes with extraneous information in which case we need to be able to "separate the wheat from the chaff", that is, take what's good and ignore the rest. When you're paying for the information you can demand an exact answer to your EXACT question but in this case neither you nor I are paying customers and we take what information we get in whatever format we get it and we happily live with the answer knowing that the alternative is to have NONE of our questions answered....... :coolsmile:

One more time......let me take you and others through EXACTLY what you took offense to, then you'll see that you overreacted.

First you asked the following question:

"For the size of your firebox---what’s the biggest piece you can throw in and get to burn successfully?? Being a newbie I often look at ‘’chunks’’ and think ‘no way’-----so I’m wondering how big you all get away with. "

then a few responses later, Dylan gave the following response to you:

"If by “you”, you mean “I”, I’ll just indicate that there are MANY factors which govern the likelihood of successful large chunk combustion, and that YOU’LL learn this YOURSELF with time and experience."

then you responded as follows:

"Nope----by ‘you’ I meant ‘you’----not ‘I’----and I was just asking out of curiosity----I’m not gonna do something I’m not comfortable with because ‘you’ say it’s okay. But thanks for the patronization."

My Comment: it's PERFECTLY CLEAR from Dylans response that he was telling you that there are numerous factors governing this and that the best way to answer it is for you to arrive at the correct answer yourself through time and experience. And for this you go Chernobyl (nuclear) on the guy??? As I said, there are obviously other "issues" here. Care to enlighten us?

Some erroneously conclude that wood which is split & then allowed to “air dry” for a year is “seasoned”.

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Dave, I'm not so sure that is an erroneous assumption. I have all sorts of hardwood species in my stacked wood, all of which was accumulated / split / stacked in the open, with no covers, or heaters, or greenhouses or anything. My wood is processed between late fall and early spring for the next year's burning season. I don't have any idea what the mc is, just that the wood looks dry, and when two pieces are banged together I get that nice clunk sound that dry wood makes. I think that advocating fancy solar heaters, or greenhouses, or curing firewood for years on end is doing a diservice to newer burners. It's simply not that hard to establish a dry wood supply. I sometimes think some of us get too wrapped around the wood drying axle here. I mean this really doesn't need to be rocket science. It makes for interesting theoretical reading I guess, but really, generally speaking if the wood is split and stacked for nine months to a year, it should be just fine to burn.

My $0.02

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chrisN

So my post is a “diservice” & or “theoretical reading ”?!?

OK, carefully consider the following 25 year field trial results.

My brother-in-law (b-i-l) & I built our houses 27 years ago. Both of us have an inside metal class A chimney. But he had a disadvantage, he was raised in the country where the family heated with wood & propane, so his approach to firewood preparation was based on what his dad did. Cut & split the wood a year in advance & then stack it out in the open under roofing tin to dry.

My advantage? I was a complete novice to wood burning, but wanted to learn the best way least my family suffer because of my lack of knowledge.

Today he must tie down the rain cap on his metal chimney, the wind blows it off if he doesn’t. Why? Because creosote has eaten the top out of the metal chimney pipe. And the 2nd section below the top section looks more like rusted single wall stove pipe than a class A chimney.

B-i-l understands why my pipe looks new, the rain cap must be rocked back & forth, while lifting up, in order to get it off, etc. My Metalbestos chimney shows no pin holes after 27 years. B-i-l simply chose to ignore, what he now admits is common sense, how to properly prepare wood due to family “tradition“. He has seen the results & even gets a kick out of my woodshed.

Since the figures provided are from actual government/universities studies, why do you consider such “theoretical reading ”?

And how is helping new & or older operators learn how to tweak their heater’s performance, by getting 20% more heat from their fire wood, plus reducing creosote, a “diservice” to either?

Why not try it out yourself, even if its on a small scale?

And while you’re at it include this experiment also.

Take two plastic bottles & cut the tops off. Draw a line with a “Sharpie” one inch below the tops, write the date under the lines, add water to the lines, install one bottle in a shaded area of your wood pile, where it never sees sunlight, under roof, & put a ¼” screen over the top to keep birds, mice, etc out. Do the same with the other bottle but put it where it remains in constant sunlight & under roof. Check the levels one year later.

(Those who have pets & or hang laundry outside already know the answer so allow those who don’t know a chance to learn .) ;-)